As it happens, my sight is degenerating. That's the bad news. The good news is that it's degenerating slower than it should be for my age.

I can't tell you how grateful I am to be a 49-year-old with the vision of someone aged 47.

After a good 40 minutes ("quick"!!) of lenses, computer read-outs, a strange thing that squirts air at your eye-ball, ever-so-slightly uncomfortable places to put your chin, the upshot seems to be that I need reading glasses.

I've ordered some of the half-lens thingies which will let me look sternly over the top of them should I hear something that displeases me, such as a failure of the hop crop, a drop in the price of pork or a new album by The Killers. I may even post photographic evidence.

I've found I need readers in the evening after the natural light has gone. I have narrow lenses too and even though I'm on my own, there's still something wonderfully professorial about looking up over the top of them and I rather like the ceremony of having to get them out to read something while I'm out. Half moons next, I think.